Australian Stock Market Report – Midday 4-22-13

MID-SESSION REPORT
(12.30pm AEST)

The Australian sharemarket is improving for the second consecutive session, with the All Ordinaries Index (XAO) up 0.2 per cent. Most major global markets ended higher on Friday night which is helping lift equities this morning. Local shares have just had their second worst week of 2013 however.

The mining sector is one of the standouts, with iron ore focused Rio Tinto (RIO) up 1.2 per cent while the larger BHP Billiton (BHP) is 0.19 per cent stronger. The miners are coming off the worst week for the industry since May 2012. Copper and gold miner, OZ Minerals (OZL) is down by approximately 5 per cent after announcing a drop in copper production guidance for this calendar year.

CommSec's State of the States report out today continues to show Western Australia and the Northern Territory as the two standouts while South Australia and Tasmania are dragging their heels economically.

Property ground Australand (ALZ) is holding its Annual General Meeting (AGM) with shareholders today.

At lunch, 678M shares have exchanged hands worth $1.24B. 427 stocks are higher, 303 are in the red while 261 are unchanged.

Looking ahead, keep your eye on Woodside Petroleum (WPL) which holds its AGM on Wednesday in addition to gold miner Newcrest Mining (NCM) which will issue its production numbers tomorrow. On the economic front, quarterly inflation data will be out mid-week. This is an important indicator for the Reserve Bank (RBA) and the direction of interest rates.

In the region, the latest reading on the health of China's manufacturing industry will be issued tomorrow by HSBC. Later in the week, the Bank of Japan (BoJ) makes its interest rates decision, issues its accompanying policy statement in addition to a manufacturing reading.

In Europe, consumer confidence data is out tonight while manufacturing data for the major Eurozone economies is out tomorrow night. In the US, the earnings season cranks up a notch, with Apple (AAPL;us) issuing its numbers tomorrow night.

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